Quiz – Balicki leads

In my first post about the BZ-signals, I focused on analyzing, how Balicki signals, when he sees partners leads and dummy hits the table. Lets try to do a small quiz together on the Balicki leads and see, how my three simple hypotheses work on these hands. Don’t worry, I will give you the questions and signals to look for at every hand

(you don’t have to read that other long article, I just linked to)

I picked a random team…. Denmark. Lets see some hands being played out.

Denmark – Balicki leads 1. hand:

Run this clip for 30 seconds, pause it and tell me what you see.

Here is what to look for.

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not?

Does he tap the table or show fingers?

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see?

(NB! Just reload the page to go back to the starting point of the video)

Scroll down to see the board and the ‘answers’, when you are ready.

— SPOILER ALERT —

My answers:

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not? NO! He doesn’t like the lead

Does he tap the table or show fingers? No

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face? YES, he does!

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway. He scratches his index finger back and forth under the nose.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see? Yes, he places his right hand fist horizontally on the table, taps it once.

The whole deal:

Maybe it was just luck, maybe Balicki had a cold and used his favorite finger to solve it, and maybe Zmudzinski was just getting tired here.

Lets try again!

Denmark – Balicki leads 2. hand:

Are you ready again?

You have to be really awake and maybe pause the video and go back – or even better play these videos in slow-motion. The devil is in the detail.

Before you play this video until dummy plays a card, here are your questions again:

Here is what to look for.

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not?

Does he tap the table or show fingers?

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see?

Remember my other article, if multiple length signals are shown: fingers flat on table shows length in heart suit, but usually they show length in partner suit first with taps or scratching with the number of fingers, they hold in partners suit.

Scroll down to see the board and the ‘answers’, when you are ready.

— SPOILER ALERT —

Here is what to look for.

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not? NO!

Does he tap the table or show fingers? NO!

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face? YES!

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway. He scratches with four fingers (1.30.50) and holds four cards in the lead suit.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see? He puts four fingers flat on the table (1.30.35) and holds four hearts.

Denmark – Balicki leads 3. hand:

Again, here is the check-list (simple version):

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not?

Does he tap the table or show fingers?

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see?

Just watch until declarer plays a card from dummy and pause it.

— SPOILER ALERT —

Here is what to look for.

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not? YES, it looks like he like the lead.

Does he tap the table or show fingers? He puts his index-finger and thumb together and folds three fingers on his right hand.

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face? Yes!

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway. We can’t see

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see? He scratches a folded fist back and forth (5), we can’t see, if he takes any fingers out from it (6-7 suit).

Robin, you are making all this up! NO ONE would cheat with secret signals, when the camera man is walking around the table and filming up close. NO ONE!

It looks right to me.

Robin, you are so biased and wrong here. You are even from Denmark!

OK, we try another country then.

Latvia – Balicki leads 1. hand:

And again, here is the check-list (simple version):

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not?

Does he tap the table or show fingers?

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see?

Just watch until declarer plays a card from dummy and pause it.

PRO-TIP: Look closely at Zmudzinski´s fingers and what happens with them

— SPOILER ALERT —

Here is what to look for.

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not? Yes, it looks like it.

Does he tap the table or show fingers? 31.03: First he taps with folded fist twice (holds xx i spades, suit lead). 31.06: Then he presses his index finger in the table (singleton hearts). Basic BZ-signaling. I can see more, but you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see? 31.05: He folds his right fist on the table (holding KQ1093 in spades). Then he sees dummy and takes his right hand up to his cheek. After this he does more tapping with both hands (unclear, but one is two times).

Did you see Balicki almost forgot the signaling system?

Watch the first three seconds here again.

Balicki and Zmudzinski defended well and beat the contract that won at the other table!

Balasovs, you paid a high price for taking a moment to think here!

You are not really convinced yet? My fault for bringing random deals instead of the worst one. Sorry about that!

Lets do another?

Latvia – Balicki leads 2. hand:

And again, here is the check-list (simple version):

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not?

Does he tap the table or show fingers?

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see?

Just watch until declarer plays a card from dummy and pause it.

Remember to watch it a few times. Remember these guys are sitting right in front of each other. You are watching a hardly compressed YouTube-clip of a recording from a mediocre camera far away from the table.

— SPOILER ALERT —

And again, here is the check-list (simple version):

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not? Yes

Does he tap the table or show fingers? Folds his hand and put the tip of the thumb next to the tip of index finger (4)

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face? YES again.

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway. 58:48: Four fingers (length in partners suit)

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see? 58.43:He puts a flat hand with five fingers stretched on the table (hearts).

Luckily for Balasovs, 4S was unbeatable and made 11 easy tricks.

Boooring, Robin!

OK, lets try a few more.

Russia – Balicki leads 1. hand:

Lets look at the leads against Russia then.

The check-list (simple version):

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not?

Does he tap the table or show fingers?

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see?

Just watch the first 60 seconds and pause it. Reload this page to replay.

Did you see anything?

— SPOILER ALERT —

What did we see?

Does Zmudzinski like the lead?

Does his right hand fist go down or the table in horizontal position or not? It stays on the table (holding AK4).

Does he tap the table or show fingers? He puts his middle-finger and thumb together after seeing dummy.

What signaling does Balicki with his right hand?

Does he scratch face?

If so, how many fingers does he use? Its difficult to see, but guess anyway.

Does he tap the table with his right hand to show length in suit lead? If so, how many taps, do you see? 55:55: Places a flat hand with five fingers on the table to show length in lead suit (diamonds QJ972).

Watch closely and in slow-motion and you will see this signal:

There is a lot more signaling going on in this hand, but lets keep it simple for now.